Moscow, September 10, 2024, The Europe Today: Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu stated that the US and its allies missed an opportunity to neutralize Russia by fully integrating it into Western structures in the 1990s. In an interview with Rossiya-24 aired on Tuesday, the former defense minister recalled that then-President Boris Yeltsin had suggested to US President Bill Clinton in 1994 that “Russia has to be the first country to join NATO.”
Shoigu reflected on this pivotal moment, asserting that if Russia had been fast-tracked into NATO or the European Union at that time, the country would have lost its sovereignty by now. “The resources and natural deposits that our country has would have been largely redistributed and snatched,” Shoigu stated.
During the mid-1990s, Russia was struggling with severe financial difficulties and heavily relied on foreign aid to sustain its economy. Shoigu argued that if the West had offered Russia a path into the Western fold, the country might have accepted due to its reliance on external assistance.
Shoigu also shared his personal experiences from that period, recounting how, as head of the Emergencies Ministry, he closely monitored the arrival of foreign subsidies to secure funding for salaries. His comments highlight how vulnerable Russia was at the time and how differently its geopolitical trajectory could have been shaped by a closer relationship with the West.
This reflection adds a new perspective to ongoing debates about Russia’s position on the global stage and its relations with Western powers over the past three decades.
